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      in Movies

      Rebecca Hall on ‘Godzilla x Kong’ and Finding Her Way in Hollywood

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      Rebecca Hall stood in front of an easel, her face contemplative. She moved a paintbrush gently on a palette, then applied the paint to the canvas. This was in her studio, a converted barn next door to where Ms. Hall lives in upstate New York with her husband, the actor Morgan Spector, and their 5-year-old daughter, Ida.When she’s not acting, Ms. Hall paints as a way of channeling her creativity. Her father, Sir Peter Hall — who founded the Royal Shakespeare Company — once warned her about dividing her talents. “He said that it’s very hard to do more than one thing, which really haunted me for a really long time,” Ms. Hall said. “Increasingly, though, I refuse to stay in one lane.”This, in many ways, is Ms. Hall in a nutshell: unwilling to be boxed in, an artist at heart. At 41, Ms. Hall is considered by some to be one of her generation’s most talented actresses. She possesses an unnerving maturity and an unparalleled capacity for versatility. She can so thoroughly embody a character that, as the New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis once wrote, “she becomes your way into the movie as well as the reason you keep watching.” But her career choices reveal a circuitous route toward stardom, a push and pull between projects with famous directors and actors and those on a much smaller scale, including independent films and stage productions.Most recently, she appears in this month’s “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” a big-budget monster film. In it, she plays Dr. Ilene Andrews, an anthropological linguist, who serves as a maternal Jane Goodall-type figure for Kong. It’s the type of heavily marketed blockbuster that a younger Rebecca Hall might have objected to altogether. So why did she choose to do it?“The cynical answer is you don’t get to be an artist in this day and age without doing some of those,” she replied. “But I’m also a straight-up lover of cinema, and that involves all kinds of cinema. I don’t have the mentality of, ‘Oh, I’ve got to do one for them, and then I can do one for me.’ There’s also a huge amount of fun in it, and I’m proud of the end result.”Ms. Hall in this month’s big-budget film “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.” She is “a straight-up lover of cinema, and that involves all kinds of cinema,” she said.Dan McFadden/Warner Bros. PicturesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      36 Hours in Austin: Things to Do and See

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      9 a.m.
      Embrace Austin’s breakfast taco addiction
      Breakfast tacos are essential in Austin, and Veracruz All Natural is a top spot for them; the yummy smoothies are a gratifying bonus. The sisters Reyna and Maritza Vazquez opened their first Austin food trailer in 2008, and now there are seven Veracruz locations, including East Austin, South Austin and inside the Line hotel — visit whichever is closest. The meat is consistently tender and well seasoned, and the tortillas are pillowy. Try the popular migas taco, with fluffy eggs and avocado, or the (somewhat) healthier La Reyna, which is loaded with veggies. Pair with fresh juices like the Mr. Verde, a combo of celery, green apple, spinach and more, or smoothies like the Mexico Lindo, with lime juice and cantaloupe, for an ideal, all-in-one morning stop. Most tacos and smoothies cost around $5. More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in Music

      Inside the Lunar New Year Galas Hosted by the New York Philharmonic and 88rising

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      88rising’s Moonrise GalaOn Saturday evening in Los Angeles, the Lunar New Year celebrations continued as Hollywood’s Milk Studios was transformed for the inaugural Moonrise Gala by 88rising, the pan-Asian music collective and record label.Like 88rising, which helps Asian artists find mainstream success in the West, the event was focused on highlighting pioneering Asian performers, past and present.The night’s honorees spanned contemporary artists like the musicians Anderson .Paak, Jackson Wang and NIKI; the “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” director Destin Daniel Cretton; and influential figures like the ’90s dance-pop singer Jocelyn Enriquez and the Bay Area turntablist group Invisibl Skratch Piklz.“We’re just going to celebrate people that have really unique stories to tell,” Sean Miyashiro, 88rising’s founder, said. The collective also has plans to release music and videos with the night’s honorees, including Ms. Enriquez and Invisibl Skratch Piklz.Attendees entered through the venue’s arched red tunnel, dripping with fringe, into a space outfitted with dangling LED pendant lights.Before the ceremony, guests were offered small plates of Wagyu beef dishes including sliders, curry and kebabs. After brief remarks and performances from some of the honorees, they were each presented with a bespoke medal housed in an illuminated velvet-lined jewelry box designed by the New York jeweler Anna Kikue.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      ‘The New Look’ Cast Reflects on Chanel and Dior’s History at Premiere

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      Juliette Binoche, Ben Mendelsohn and John Malkovich, stars of a new series set in World War II Paris, discussed French fashion history at the show’s premiere in New York.On Monday evening along Madison Avenue in Manhattan, while fashionistas on the Upper East Side finished their shopping rounds at Dior and Chanel, a crowd headed to the French Institute Alliance Française to attend the premiere of an Apple TV+ series that recounts the origin story of those two fashion houses through the tale of Coco Chanel and Christian Dior’s lives in war-torn Paris during the 1940s.“The New Look,” which starts streaming today, is a period drama that portrays the rivalry between Chanel, who is played by Juliette Binoche, and Dior, who is played by Ben Mendelsohn. The show chronicles how these two figures were shaped by the moral challenges of life in Nazi-occupied Paris and how they managed survival and self-preservation. The war’s effect on Cristóbal Balenciaga, Pierre Balmain and Pierre Cardin is also explored.The series depicts portrays Chanel’s well-documented collaboration with the Nazi party: her use of Aryan laws to try and oust her Jewish business partners, her romance with a high-ranking German officer, and her participation as a secret agent assigned to a covert operation, Modellhut (“model hat”), that tasked her with delivering a message to Winston Churchill. Her younger and striving rival, Dior, resentfully makes evening gowns for the wives of Nazis, while his sister, Catherine, is sent to a concentration camp after her arrest as a resistance fighter.During red-carpet interviews inside the French Institute, the show’s cast reflected on the challenges of playing the characters.Juliette Binoche plays Coco Chanel in the series. “My job as an actor is to show the reality of her life during a dark and dehumanizing time in history,” Ms. Binoche said.A guest at the party wears a Christian Dior hairclip.Darina Al Joundi, the actress.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 63 Shares149 Views

      in Theater

      Remembering Chita Rivera’s Unique Voice

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      Chita Rivera died on Jan. 30, at age 91. Over her seven decades performing onstage and onscreen, Rivera established herself as one of the 20th century’s great dancers. “But to think of her only as a dancer,” says our chief theater critic, Jesse Green, “is to miss a really important part of what made her one of the most compelling stage performers of the last 70 years. And that is her voice.” Listen in as he presents some of Rivera’s great vocal performances.On today’s episodeJesse Green, chief theater critic for The Times.Photo illustration by The New York Times; Photo: Ted Streshinsky/Corbis, via Getty ImagesFurther reading Read Jesse’s appraisal of Chita Rivera’s gifts as a singerThe New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. More

    • 150 Shares139 Views

      in Theater

      The Queer Kids Are All Right. And Now They’re Making Me Better.

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      Here’s a list of every openly queer person I knew when I was 15:That’s it. None. Not even myself.Oh sure, Paul Lynde and Liberace were flouncing on television; closer to home, a boy I kept my distance from decoupaged his notebooks. But even if they really were what people whispered or snarled about them, it was not then an identity they would dare to acknowledge.Nor would I. Unable to see through their closet doors to the truth of what their lives might be, I did not have the benefit of their stories, which meant not having the benefit of my own.Cut to today, 50 years later. Another 15-year-old boy — like me intense, unathletic and bullied — is the lead character on “Heartstopper,” a hit teen romance. But this boy, Charlie, knows all about queerness. He is, after all, growing up in the 2020s and, more to the point, in 2020s pop culture. In that magical land, also known as Netflix, adolescence for people like him is not only survivable but often a lovefest, all closet doors blown off their hinges.And I do mean all. Charlie (adorkable Joe Locke) is happy to be gay, and why not: When he crushes on a dreamy and apparently straight rugby player, the rugby player promptly comes out as bisexual. Their romance is supported by a cute teenage lesbian couple they hang out with. Also in the group is a bookish nerd who realizes he’s asexual — or “ace,” as he explains, pinning a fun new name on that identity. Even the straight boy, vastly outnumbered, gets a queer love story when he falls for his best friend, a beautiful trans girl.Welcome to the classic lifeboat plot, checking boxes on a diversity agenda. But this time it’s mostly calm seas and clear sailing.Do I sound envious? I am. Also slightly embarrassed.Don’t get me wrong: My husband and I devoured the first two seasons. (The third is expected in the fall.) I’ve also been watching, with or without him — for these are guilty pleasures — a slew of other queer youth stories, all the while trying to sort out my feelings.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More